Jimbo Fisher reveals message to Max Johnson after throwing an interception

Texas A&M has had to change starting quarterbacks for the second straight year due to injury, and veteran Max Johnson is doing his best to steady the ship for the Aggies after taking over for Connor Weigman.

It hasn’t always been perfect, affording coach Jimbo Fisher the opportunity to coach Johnson up after mistakes.

Fisher explained his process after being asked about a Johnson interception in Saturday’s narrow 38-35 loss to No. 10 Ole Miss.

“It’s first what did you see? It goes back to why did you do what you do? What made you do that?” Fisher said. “Sometimes it can be a receiver can bust a route. Protection, he didn’t see it, front. You couldn’t see the safety because this or you misread the coverage. The first thing is what was you thinking and what made you do what you did? What was your thought process? Because that’s the only way you can help them and figure out what’s going on. That’s the first thing.”

Fisher mostly wants to know what a quarterback was seeing. Once he is able to get the full picture from the quarterback, he’s able to determine if it was a genuine mistake or something that requires deeper fixing.

Sometimes a quarterback just isn’t cut out for the job.

But as long as the guy in charge knows what he’s looking at and is right on what he’s supposed to be able to expect from the defense, all good.

“Why is my magic word,” Fisher said.

Max Johnson is a veteran enough to know when he’s made a mistake. He can come back from them and hurt you later in the game once he’s mastered the concept.

He proved that on Saturday against Ole Miss when he fired a 28-yard touchdown pass to his brother Jake Johnson down the left sideline. Fisher broke down the play on his weekly radio program.

“What he did on that, they actually covered Jake,” Fisher said. “We had a post and a wheel, had a bootleg coming. And he comes out and they played him to it and he went to go back to the boot because it was wide open, well the guy came off of Jake, saw it, saw his eyes, and came back to Jake. Then when he did, he knew that guy came off so he was able to go right back to where Jake was. Because Jake was covered originally.

“He was going to throw the boot coming to Jahdae (Walker), matter of fact, coming across the field. I said that’s a great job with your eyes. We always call it down, up, down. You’re going out, in, out. Different things on your nakeds because how they play you tells you where the ball’s got to go. And he did a really good job on that.”

As Texas A&M pursues bowl eligibility with one more win, it’ll be looking to the veteran Max Johnson to make plays and put it in position.

The team returns to action on Saturday against Mississippi State with a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ESPN2.